Study On Urban Size,Specialization And Urban Productivity In Cheng-Yu Urban Agglomeration

The new classical urbanization theory says that urban is the product of evolution in division. On the one hand, under the condition of agglomeration economy, spatial agglomeration provides specialization with market size it needed, letting professional products and service possess corresponding market capacity. One the other hand, the deepening of the specialization acquires externality and then increasing returns because of spatial agglomeration reducing production cost, transportation cost and transaction cost. Thereout, the relation between spatial agglomeration and specialization is achieved through externality and increasing returns. Under the cycle and accumulation, along with regional urbanization, expansion in population, advances in processing technology, increase in social wealth, more and more extensive spatial agglomeration and spatial division links, urban agglomeration comes into being. In 21 st century, Regional economic development has been into the era of urban agglomeration. Whether Five Urban agglomerations in the world or Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei in China, urban agglomeration is playing a role of growth pole. Nowday, urban agglomeration is recognized as the most efficient form to comply with the international urbanization trend and integrate regional resource effectively, and it is upgraded to a national strategy of urbanization in China. China government has already presented the idea that regarding the urban agglomeration pattern as a main measure to promote the healthy development of urbanization since the Eleventh Five-year Plane. In 2014, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council published New Urbanization National Plane(2014 ~ 2020), presenting that “Optimize urbanization pattern and forms”, “Cultivate and develop middle-western urban agglomerations”. Cheng-Yu urban agglomeration, which is the largest urban agglomeration in west, has upgraded to a national one since 2015, and it has become a highland of economic development as well as a national major development priority zone in west China. Cheng-Yu urban agglomeration have the potential to become the fourth economic growth pole in the train of Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, so it shoulders important tasks of promoting west development and even the eastern-middle-western region’s coordinating development. However, recent years have shown that Cheng-Yu still faces some problems such as unreasonable urban size system, similar industrial structure and incomplete collaboration mechanism. Therefore, this paper based on the new classical economic and its urbanization theory, aims to study Cheng-Yu urban agglomeration and applies the agglomeration economics theory, labor specialization division theory and central place theory those bringing urban size and specialization into an integrated framework, to investigate how urban size and specialization affect urban productivity and different size cities corresponding to what kind of specialization division links. So significance obviously is there for Cheng-Yu to perfect the urban size system and be hand in glove among different cities, and also for the eastern-middle-western region a coordinating development.The main contents are made up of the following:(1) Bring urban size system and specialization into an integrated framework and clarify the impact mechanism of size distribution to urban productivity by classifying the agglomeration economics theory, labor specialization division theory and central place theory, which can solid theoretical basis for successor study.(2) Computational analysis Cheng-Yu urban agglomeration’s size distribution, specialization level and urban productivity level selecting the relevant data from China City Statistical Yearbook(2004~2014), to provide a realistic foundation for empirical research and policy recommendations.(3) Examine the relationship among urban size, specialization and urban productivity in Cheng-Yu urban agglomeration by quantile regression analysis method.The results prove that:(1) There is a significant inverse U relation between urban size and urban productivity in Cheng-Yu urban agglomeration, and the threshold size is near ten million population size. So Chongqing need look out for crowding effect leading to the agglomeration diseconomy.(2) The specialization pattern in Cheng-Yu urban agglomeration shifts from intra-industry work division to industry division chain, and presents a situation that management and R&D function in big city is unceasingly strengths at the same time the small-medium cities do a very similar performance in the manufacturing function.(3) After introducing the functional specialization of this study, it finds that mega-cities like Chongqing and Chengdu their urban productivity increases as specialization level increasing, which indicating specialization economy is also applicable to large scale urban.(4) The city whose population size from one million to two million possesses a space to develop. One the one hand, cities like Zigong, Luzhou, Mianyang, Yibin and Nanchong have the potential onwards tow million population size city; on the other hand, cities like Suining, Neijiang, Guangan and Ziyang should give full play to their labor force advantage, and cultivate the leading industries to speed up into the functional specialization in urban agglomeration.